Official proceedings of the National Democratic convention, held at New York, July 4-9, 1868.: Reported by George Wakeman, official reporter of the Convention.

NATIONAL DEAMOCRATIC CONVENTION. peace, order, and a return to those industrial pursuits without which we cannot maintain the faith or honor of our government. The minds of business men are perplexed by uncertainties. The hours of toil of our laborers are lengthened bythe costs of living made by the direct and indirect exactions of government. Our people are harassed by the heavy and frequent demands of the tax-gatherer. Without distinction of party, there is a strong feeling in favor of that line of action which shall restore order and confidence, and shall lift off the burthens which now hinder and vex the industry of the country. Yet, at this moment, those in power have thrown into the Senate Chamnber and Congressional Hall new elements of discord and violence. Men have been admitted as Representatives of some of the Southern States, with the declaration upon their lips that they cannot live in the States they claim to represent, without military protection. These men are to make laws for the North as well as the South. These men, who, a few days since, were seeking as suppliants that Congress would give them power within their respective States are, to-day, the masters and controllers of the actions of those bodies. Entering them with minds filled with passions, their first demands have been that Congress shall look upon the States from which they come as in conditions of civil war; that the majority of their populations, embracing their intelligence, shall be treated as public enemies; that military forces shall be kept up at the cost of the people of the North, and that there shall be no peace and order at the South save that which is made by arbitrary power. Every intelligent man knows that these men owe their seats in Congress to the disorder in the South; every man knows that they not only owe their present positions to disorder, but that every motive springing from the love of power, of gain, of a desire for vengeance, prompts them to keep the South in anarchy. While that exists, they are independent of the wills or wishes of their fellow-citizens. While confusion reigns, they are the dispensers of the profits and the honors which grow out of the government of mere force. These men are now placed in positions where they cannot urge their views of policy, but where they can enforce them. When others shall be admitted in this manner from the remaining Southern States, although they will have, in truth, no constituents, they will have more power in the Senate than a majority of the people of this Union living in nine of the great States. In vain the wisest members of the Republican party protested against the policy that led to this result. While the chiefs of the late rebellion have submitted to the results of the war, and are now quietly engaged in useful pursuits for the support of themselves and their families) and are trying, by the force of their example, to lead back the people of the South to the order and industry, not only essential to their well-being, but to the greatness and prosperity of our common country, we see, that those who, without ability or influence, have been thrown, by the agitations of civil convulsion, into positions of honor and profit, are striving to keep alive the passions to which they owe their elevation. And they clamorously insist that they are the only friends of our Union, - a Union that can only have a sure foundation in fraternal regard, and a common desire to promote the peace, the order, and the happiness of all sections of our land. Events in Congress, since the adjournment of the Convention, have vastly increased the importance of a political victory by those who are seeking to bring back economy,' simplicity, and justice in the administration of our 12 177

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Title
Official proceedings of the National Democratic convention, held at New York, July 4-9, 1868.: Reported by George Wakeman, official reporter of the Convention.
Author
Democratic National Convention
Canvas
Page 177
Publication
Boston,: Rockwell & Rollins, printers,
1868.
Subject terms
Campaign literature -- United States

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"Official proceedings of the National Democratic convention, held at New York, July 4-9, 1868.: Reported by George Wakeman, official reporter of the Convention." In the digital collection Making of America Books. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ahm4870.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 1, 2025.
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